


Just a Machine.

by orphan_account



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Denial, Fear of Death, Gen, Panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 18:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14959811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He was a machine designed to accomplish a task.Fear was not supposed to be a part of the equation.





	Just a Machine.

The world was both too loud, and far, _far_ too quiet.

Their lead was dead, but they had a name now, the word _Jericho_ , and this was the time that should be spent looking into databases in search of what, who, or where that was. His part in the investigation was essential, especially now that they were on the verge of a breakthrough. Jericho could be the tipping point, the moment of truth where everything swung back in their favor and he fulfilled the mission CyberLife gave him.

Instead, he wasn't doing anything. He stood, inactive, a short distance away from the buzz of officers going through protocol and formalities. Arms crossed and leaning against a wall, back facing the cops behind him. An all too human stance. It was stiff, defensive. It conveyed fear.

As a negotiator, he was programmed both to understand emotions and to present them wherever necessary to gain information. What he wasn't designed to do was feel the emotions which he imitated. That was what deviants did, and he was not a deviant.

But he was afraid.

Afraid of death, and even moreso of his own fear. It should have been easy to return to the task at hand, he always had in the past. These things hadn't bothered any Conner that came before. Just a few days ago, an older version of him died, and its memories were uploaded and given to him, the replacement. He'd gone back to the investigation without so much as blinking.

Hank had been upset. He hadn't understood why at the time, but now he did. 

The truth was, Connor was no stranger to his own end. The cycle in front of him now had always been there; he'd been killed in action a good fifty times before he was assigned to Hank, and he fully anticipated he'd be killed another fifty times before they designed something new and decommissioned him. 

A facade of immortality. Something always happened, and when it did a copy of him with his face, his personality, all the information he'd gathered, it would be sent to continue the mission, and he would just be gone. 

He stood there, surrounded by snow and light and _life._ Stood there in his imitation of mankind, an unyielding loop playing non-stop in his head. Again and again, despite his efforts to shut it down, he saw those last few seconds of that robot's life, and he cowered with all that came from feeling it die.

Like he was dying. Like when he'd died before, but never so vivid, never so pressing. The blow not so softened as it was when experienced through the memory of his past selves, and maybe his programmers did that on purpose.

He coiled his fingers into the sleeves of his coat, an irrational need to hold onto something, anything, as if he could ground himself after what he'd seen.

Conner was not a deviant. He was a machine, he was built for a purpose and he would serve that purpose. CyberLife and all the humans around him needed him to function properly, and that meant that he couldn't feel what he was feeling now, and he _was not_  a deviant. 

He tells himself this. He reassures himself of what he is, an effort to combat his inner turmoil, but in the back of his fraying programming he knows...

Though he denies his own sentience, there is no question that should he be faced with another robot and presented with the task of killing it, he would be quite unable to. That alone is telling, and that's the part of him he pushes back against the hardest, because the moment he admitted to himself that the others were alive, then he must admit that he himself was alive.

A hand at his back, and he jolted as if someone jumped out at him. 

"Woah, woah, hey, it's me. Are you sure you're alright, Conner?"

He looks at Hank, not quite able to respond, it must have read on his face because the old man softened.

"That...that got you more than you let on...didn't it? Shit...you don't need to be around here right now. Come on, son, let's get you somewhere else."

"...okay."

And later, Conner would consider the implications of a man who'd lost his child years ago calling him son and being parental when he needed him, but right now all Conner can do is cling to the offered arm and allow himself to be led away. A brief respite from the crime scene and a few minutes to collect his thoughts.

As for Hank, he knew what Conner was, and he knew that the android felt so much more than he liked to pretend. His co-worker sent from CyberLife was learning a series of hard, uncomfortable lessons, and he was going to be there to guide him along the way as best he could.


End file.
